The present invention relates generally to the field of computing, and more particularly to tracking electronic devices using cell towers.
Mobile cellular devices, such as smartphones, utilize cell towers located at fixed geographic points to relay voice and data transmissions between a mobile cellular device and a cellular network. Cellular network signal strength between a mobile cellular device and a cell tower depends in part on the physical distance between the mobile cellular device and the cell tower. While a mobile cellular device may move away from a first cell tower reducing signal strength to the first cell tower, the mobile cellular device may also move closer to a second cell tower increasing signal strength to the second cell tower. At any given instant, the mobile cellular device may communicate with multiple cell towers in order to seamlessly handoff voice and data transmissions from one cell tower to another cell tower as the mobile cellular device moves. By utilizing the signal strength information from multiple cell towers with known fixed geographic locations, a mobile cellular device's geographic location may be determined by triangulation.